


Cover Your Crystal Eyes

by jynx



Series: A Loving Heart is the Truest Wisdom [7]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Confused boys, Discussions of Foster System, F/M, Foster Care, Getting Back Together, Happy Ending, Idiots Who Need To Use Their Words, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Pining, Post-Break Up, boys are idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 06:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15966290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jynx/pseuds/jynx
Summary: Six months after a breakup that came out of nowhere, Obi-Wan calls his ex after too many drinks. To his surprise, Cody shows up.





	Cover Your Crystal Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sanerontheinside](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanerontheinside/gifts).



> This is completely Saner's fault, as she sent me a list of Post Breakup prompts. I picked two, because I'm an overachiever. I'm antsy over this because it's not quite the same mood as the rest of my stuff? It's not a distinct happy ending, but it's there. Maybe it's a little more realistic. ^^;; I hope you like? 
> 
> Prompts:
> 
> ¨i still have your phone number memorized even though i haven’t called you since we split and somehow i remembered it even though i’ve had like six shots of bourbon and hey, i know you’re pissed that you’re here at this dingy club at 3 in the morning to pick my drunk ass up, but you have to admit that’s pretty impressive¨ AU  
> “yes, i know this is your sweatshirt and that we broke up five months ago but it’s really comfy okay. i totally don’t wear it because like it still smells like you or is the only thing that even remotely feels like home since i moved out. pfft. absolutely not.” AU
> 
> Title from "Crystals" by Of Monsters & Men

Obi-Wan played with the empty glass as he laid his head on his arm on the bartop, spinning the glass idly. He was so trashed. All of his friends had left him behind, he couldn't remember why, but he just wanted to go home. Only home was an apartment he wasn't welcome in anymore and all he had was a sweatshirt that smelled like home and he nuzzled his arm, inhaling, as he spun the glass again. It went spinning out of reach and he lunged for it, flailing off the barstool and right into a pair of strong arms. 

"Oh," he said, tilting his head back and trying to smile at Cody. "You came." 

"Is that my sweatshirt?" Cody asked, frowning at him. 

"Nnnnoooo?" Obi-Wan said slowly as he tried to stand on his own. Nope, feet didn't want to work. Cody set him back on the stool and called the bartender over as Obi-Wan huddled further into the oversized sweatshirt. It was comfy and warm, even if it had been worn out in a few spots, and it most definitely was Cody's. Obi-Wan had not gone to Kaminoan High School, after all, or played football. Which is what the sweatshirt was, a team football sweatshirt with Cody's jersey number and the little "C" for Captain stitched into the shoulder. 

"Drink," Cody said, handing him a glass of water. Obi-Wan shook his head and then froze. Oh, that had been such a bad idea. "You are not getting into my car until you drink two glasses of water, you thieving bastard. So unless you want me to call you an Uber after all of this? Drink the damned water." 

Obi-Wan glanced at the thundercloud of anger on Cody's face and took the water. He didn't know why he called Cody, he had deleted the man's number like you did when you broke up with someone, but he still remembered the numbers. Seeing how upset the other was he decided maybe it had been a very bad idea. Then again, he'd had--what? Six or eight glasses of bourbon and that was only at this place. The other two places had been beer and, shit. Whisky? He didn't remember. 

"Why do you have my sweatshirt?" Cody asked, leaning against the bar and looking at the bottles against the wall. 

"Because," Obi-Wan murmured into the water glass. He had a feeling that admitting the truth was a bad idea. 

"Would it kill you to give me a straight answer for once in your life?" Cody asked, shoulders hunching. "I'm here, aren't I? Humor me." 

Obi-Wan tipped the glass against his mouth, guzzling it so he didn't have to answer immediately. Was he drunk enough to answer? Oh, probably. Was he sober enough to recognize the warning signs of actually doing so? Also yes. Was he past the point of caring? Definitely. 

"It smelled like you, like home," Obi-Wan said as he set the glass down. "Still does." 

"I've been looking for it," Cody said, turning his head to stare at him. "Never crossed my mind that you'd taken it when you left." 

"You told me to get out," Obi-Wan said, voice small. 

Cody sighed and waved the bartender over to refill the water glass. "You are ridiculous. Please tell me you weren't here alone." 

Obi-Wan waved a hand toward the door. "They left. I was being boring." 

"He was missing his ex," the bartender said, putting a fresh glass of water in front of Obi-Wan. "It was kind of cute but his friends got annoyed and left." 

Cody's face did some sort of dance and Obi-Wan flushed, flipping the hood of the too-big sweatshirt up and hiding in it as he drank more water. "Some of your friends are assholes," Cody said finally. 

"I'm an asshole," Obi-Wan muttered into the water. 

Cody rubbed at his back. "His tab get settled?" he asked the bartender. 

"I just need to close it out," she said. "Give me a sec." 

"Thanks," Cody said. Obi-Wan had to stop drinking half-way through the second glass, setting it down on the counter, and pressing a hand to his mouth. "You okay?" 

"Sloshy," Obi-Wan muttered. 

"How much have you had to drink?" Cody asked in that slow, measured way that used to set off alarm bells in his mind. Now, all Obi-Wan wanted to do was lean into him and bask in his warmth. 

"Lots," he admitted, giving into the urge and leaning into Cody. He closed his eyes and breathed the other in, trying not to sniff. Why had they broken up again? What had gone wrong? Why couldn't he just go _home_? 

"Here you go," the bartender said. 

Cody settled an arm around Obi-Wan's shoulders and, with a sigh, scribbled for him. "Why do I have a feeling you didn't take me off this account?" he asked. 

"Didn't," Obi-Wan agreed. Cody was warm and strong and familiar and just so lovely. 

"Seven glasses of mid-shelf bourbon," the bartender said. "I watered down the last two but from the way his friends were acting, this wasn't their first stop." 

"Third," Obi-Wan agreed. 

"Awesome," Cody said. "And you remembered my phone number through all of that alcohol." 

"Rex's too, but I don't want to see him," Obi-Wan said. "He'd probably punch me. I wanted you. Want you." He rubbed at his eyes as Cody moved away and made him sit up straight on the stool to avoid crashing to the floor. "Probably could remember your dad's too." 

"Let's not test that theory," Cody said. "He have a jacket or anything else?" 

"Not that I saw," the bartender said. 

Obi-Wan felt hands on his arms and let himself be tugged off the stool, stumbling up against Cody. Oh, standing. Standing was bad. The room was spinning. Or was he spinning. He heard voice and was being gently led to a bathroom, where he gratefully let himself throw up most of the alcohol he had consumed. Unlike before, there were no calming hands to soothe away the worst of the shakes or a body next to him to hold him through the aftershocks. 

The best he got was a wad of paper towels offered to wipe his mouth off and a hand up from the floor. 

"C'mon, let's go," Cody said tiredly. "It's almost 2 and I know we both have work tomorrow." 

Obi-Wan let himself be led to the car and closed his eyes once he was in the seat. Work? No, he didn't have work. Oh, wait, did he? He didn't think so. "Work?" he mumbled. 

"It's Wednesday," Cody said. "Normal people work Monday through Friday unless you do retail, and unless you quit your job in the past six months, you don't work retail." 

Obi-Wan hummed tiredly. His ribs hurt from throwing up, his throat too. "Mmnope," he said. "Promotion. Remote in, set my own hours, people report to me. Only on-site for meetings." 

Cody was quiet as they drove. "Well, I have work," he said after a long moment had passed. 

"Sorry," Obi-Wan whispered. "Sorry for everything." 

"You're drunk," Cody said. "Where am I taking you?" 

Obi-Wan rubbed at his eyes, tired, not wanting to go back to his impersonal apartment with its impersonal furniture and a new bed and all his things still in boxes because what did anything matter? He fiddled with the sleeve of the sweatshirt. "Can just drop me off at a hotel or something," he said. 

"If you don't want me to know where you live--" 

"No," Obi-Wan wailed. "I hate it there! It's awful. It's not home and, and. I'd rather just sleep in a hotel, it's practically the same thing!" 

Cody was quiet but he didn't ask again. He drove and Obi-Wan dozed lightly in the passenger seat, lulled by the sound of Cody breathing. He'd missed it, the rhythm, and it soothed the raw edges inside him. 

A short while later he woke to the sound of two people talking, one angry and the other resigned. He lifted his head and--he was home? That was the house, split into two units, that he had shared with Cody for five years. They were parked out on the street and Cody was arguing with Rex on the small lawn. There were little changes that Obi-Wan could see in the dark--the window boxes where he had planted herbs and wildflowers were gone, the windows had finally been replaced, and the house had been repainted. 

Why had Cody brought him here? 

He rubbed at his aching eyes. 

Rex saw him first and strode over, opening the car door. "Kenobi," he said, voice low and angry. 

"Hey Rex," he said. Whatever he had to say was fine, he deserved it. 

"Now's not the time," Cody said, pushing Rex out of the way and helping Obi-Wan out of the car. "Rip into him in the morning when he can actually defend himself and answer the questions." 

"And be more of an asshole about it?" Rex demanded, tailing them closely as Cody helped Obi-Wan into the house. Obi-Wan, sadly, needed the help because he was not that steady on his feet. 

"Rex," Cody sighed. 

"And where you gonna put him?" Rex asked. "We don't have a guest room and the couch broke last month." 

"The couch broke?" Obi-Wan asked, leaning back into Cody. 

"Wrestling match between the brothers," Cody said, scooping Obi-Wan up and carrying him into the house. "He can stay in my bed, it's not like it'll be the first time and it's certainly big enough." 

"Are you insane?" Rex hissed. 

Cody said nothing as he walked up the stairs to the second floor where Cody's bedroom was. It had been theirs, before the mess and mistakes and everything just went so south. Cody ignored the demands Rex made of him in the multitude of languages they both knew and set Obi-Wan on the edge of the bed, helping him to undress. 

He tried to make a grab for the sweatshirt, to keep it, but Cody was faster and got it off and away from him. Obi-Wan sat there, in a plain white t-shirt and his boxer-briefs, and looked around the bedroom. There were changes, of course there were changes, and it hurt. He laid down and pulled a pillow against his chest. He was instantly enveloped by the scent of _Cody_ and he closed his eyes. 

That was a thing, though, wasn't it? Everyone changed, everything changed, but Cody was his constant. But then he had gone and fucked it all up. He wrapped himself around the pillow and let himself drift again. 

= 

He woke up feeling miserable, confused, and queasy. He slid out of a bed that hadn't been his in months and stumbled toward the bathroom, giving into the need to purge what was left of the alcohol in his system. One of these days he would remember he was no longer twenty-five with a pristine liver and a hollow leg. The nights of endless drinking were definitely behind him. 

A knock on the bathroom door as he flushed and he looked up to see Cody with a glass of water and a bottle of pills. He blinked at him, trying to piece things together, but took it and rinsed out his mouth and spat in the toilet. 

"I took the day," Cody said. "Figure we could go over the rest of your stuff that's still here." 

Obi-Wan swallowed some water, the pills Cody handed him, and nodded. 

"Breakfast is downstairs," Cody said, vanishing into the hall. 

He pressed the glass to his forehead and closed his eyes. He was going to kill Siri and Quin for leaving him behind last night...this morning? It didn't matter. They were dead. Whatever he had left behind when Cody had kicked him out wasn't worth retrieving, not at the cost of thoroughly destroying his heart even further. He wondered if he could just call an Uber to pick him up and get out of here without any further dents to his dignity or emotions, but he knew better. 

He had called Cody last night. He had done this to himself, and to Cody. The least he could do was let the other man get this out of his system...and maybe Obi-Wan would finally get the closure he needed on why Cody had ended a five-year relationship with him with nothing more than a look and two words. 

He got to his feet and went back into the bedroom, finding his jeans and pulling them on. The sweatshirt was gone. It shouldn't have surprised him but he rubbed his aching eyes, knuckling away the tears. Closure. He, they both needed closure. 

Going down the stairs was different too. The third stair had always creeked but not anymore; someone had fixed it finally. The apartment had been painted, no longer pale neutral colors but bolder blues and greens that looked good, and the kitchen looked like it had been renovated. It was not the apartment Obi-Wan and Cody had made together. 

"Looks nice," Obi-Wan said softly as he sat at the table, avoiding Rex's glare. 

"Yeah, dad decided the place needed updating," Cody said. "He and Boba came in and blitzed the place--" 

"Couple of cousins helped too," Rex said, sipping his coffee. 

"Family helps out like that," Cody said with a shrug. 

Obi-Wan nodded slowly. He wouldn't know much about family. It was just him and Anakin, a couple of orphans who had latched onto each other and refused to be parted in the system. It had always baffled Cody, when they were dating, how the simplest "family" thing was completely foreign to him. He couldn't even remember if Cody and Anakin had met, honestly, or if he had hoarded the closest thing he had to a brother away. 

A plate appeared in front of him and he made a face. Twin glares were turned his way the moment he tried to protest and he sighed, picking up his fork. "Do either of you have my phone? I may not need to physically be in the office but I should at least check to make sure nothing has exploded and let them know to route to my cell and not the work phone," Obi-Wan said. 

"Cody said you got promoted," Rex said, shoving his phone over to him. There was a time-out message on his phone. Cute. "That was fast." 

"Funny what happens when you suddenly don't have anything else to do but work," Obi-Wan muttered, nibbling on a piece of toast. He overrode the time-out code with his fingerprint and shot off a text to his boss and two of his underlings that he was on his cell and not the work phone for the rest of the day. He logged into the secure app and started looking through the server activity and activity logs for some of his more problematic users. Nothing on fire yet. His work email was at a pathetic one hundred and sixty emails since last night and he sighed. No way was he dealing with that crap now. 

Cody was watching him with a frown. "What do you mean, you only work?" 

"I get up, I go to work, I terrorize the co-workers because it's mildly entertaining, I go home, if I'm lucky I actually sleep, and then I go to work," Obi-Wan said, setting down the fork. "Quin and Siri drag me out of an apartment I haven't bothered to unpack when they get fed up with me and." He gestured. "You saw the result. Usually they're kind enough to take my phone away from me first, and not leave me." 

"What about the brunette?" Cody asked. 

"Cody," Rex said, glaring at him. 

"Shut up, I want to know." 

Obi-Wan stared at him, confused. "Brunette?" 

"I came home one night and you had some girl in bed with you," Cody said, setting his coffee mug down. "She was all over you and. We have a guest room, there was no reason for her to be in _our_ bed but she was." 

Obi-Wan sat bad in his chair, stunned. Cody...thought he had cheated on him? He picked up his phone, flipping through his pictures and found the one of him, Anakin, and Padme and held it out to Cody. 

Cody frowned, "Yeah, her." 

"My brother's wife," Obi-Wan said softly. "Padme. She had an unexpected layover between postings for Doctors Without Borders and needed a place to stay. We were catching up and, I don't know. She didn't grow up like Anakin and I did, but she's missed me. I hadn't seen her in, fuck, eight years? I think we fell asleep talking. She said it was too noisy here." 

Cody was staring at his phone. "You have a brother?" he asked with a frown. 

Obi-Wan ran a hand through his hair, slumping in his seat. So he hadn't mentioned Anakin. "We grew up together in the system. No one was ever going to adopt me, I was too much of a fighter, and he was younger and the kind of cute kid that attracted a certain type of adult." Cody and Rex stared at him. "We looked out for each other. He made sure I didn't get kicked out of the group home before I was eighteen and I kept the perverts away. When I aged out, he ran away and we got a place." 

"Shit," Rex whispered. 

"Padme?" Cody asked, handing Obi-Wan his phone back. 

"Oh, jeez, Padme," Obi-Wan groaned. "First girl Anakin meets and he's head over heels in love with her. Straight up tells her he's going to marry her and, stars in their eyes, the idiots get married when he hits eighteen. She's five years older than him, closer to my age, actually. Did they listen to me? Nope. He got a GED and a passport and follows her around, helping out with the program. She's trying to wheedle him into applying for some classes right now but who knows if it's taking." 

"Why's that?" Cody asked, sitting at the table. 

Obi-Wan opened his text app and the last message he got from Padme, sliding it across to the brothers. Padme--beautiful, smart, talented Padme who was a motherfucking doctor--was pregnant. And was having, what it seemed to Obi-Wan, a nervous breakdown over that fact. 

"Uh," Cody said, looking at Obi-Wan. 

"They're in Kenya right now," Obi-Wan muttered. He started tearing the toast into little bits, unhappy. "Anakin's good with machines, which is why he's been telling her no on classes unless it's engineering, which he can't actually get into unless he has a certain level of test score and he doesn't want to apply himself enough for that. He's perfectly happy to follow after her and fix whatever it is they come across. Padme knows the moment he finds out that she's pregnant he's going to be over the moon, but freak out and want to stuff her into a very safe little box." 

"That's bad?" Rex asked. "Cuz, gotta admit, with him right there." 

Obi-Wan snorted. "Padme could probably outshoot you," he said. "She's a bit of a firecracker and I love her to pieces. She is so good for Anakin, but he doesn't do well with the idea of anything happening to the people he loves." 

Cody frowned. "That phone call after your car accident?" 

Obi-Wan nodded. "Yeah, that was Anakin." 

Cody swore and drained his coffee. 

Rex looked between the two of them, lips twitching into a smile. "Wow, you guys are idiots." 

Obi-Wan looked down at his plate, having run out of toast to shred, and shoved the plate away. "You thought… Cody, that was two years ago." 

Cody's jaw was clenched and he got up to pour himself more coffee. 

Obi-Wan rubbed at his eyes. Did Cody really think that he'd been cheating on him for two years, maybe even more than? What had he done wrong? 

"You've never cheated on me," Cody said, sitting back down at the table. 

"No!" Obi-Wan said, horrified at the very idea. "Cody, why would I? You're, I mean, you're perfect. You make me laugh and feel safe and, fuck. Talking to you used to be the highlight of my day. I got yelled at so much at work for texting you." Cody hid in his coffee mug there was a splash of color high on his cheeks. Rex had snagged Obi-Wan's plate and was eating the food since he clearly wasn't. "It was nice, seeing what a family was supposed to be like. Not the shit examples I used to see in foster care. You all care so much about each other and, and it was." He shook his head, not wanting to say anymore. He'd been locked out of that and he knew that somehow he deserved it. 

"Well now I feel like shit," Cody sighed. 

"Why didn't you ever just ask me?" Obi-Wan asked, trying not to beg. 

"I didn't want to know for sure," Cody said, setting his mug down. 

"To be fair," Rex said, "he told us what he saw and his suspicions, and we told him to cut you loose too." 

Obi-Wan flinched. 

"I thought he had at least talked to you?" Rex said, elbowing Cody. "But that might have been asking too much." 

Obi-Wan jumped slightly as his phone vibrated several times, lighting up as notifications poured in. Something had gone down at work. Text messages started to come in and, he sighed, the phone rang. He pulled the phone back to him and answered it. 

"Hi Mace," he said tiredly. "What failed?" 

He watched the two brothers get up to give him privacy, talking quietly to themselves, as Mace Windu--the head of Temple University's IT Department and his boss--began detailing the current issue. He closed his eyes, visualizing the issue, and started telling Mace what he needed to do to work around the issue and who to call to get an actual fix in place. He didn't have the software on his personal phone to enter tickets with their vendor. 

"You okay?" Mace asked as they wound to a close. "You sound like shit." 

"Rough night last night," Obi-Wan said. "Some personal stuff came up and I'm, uh. I'm dealing." 

"I can't give you time off," Mace warned. 

Obi-Wan snorted. "Mace, there is no such thing as time off in this job. You told me that when you promoted me and I don't really care. Put the tickets in, list my cell as an alternative number, and let the vendor know I can walk them through whatever troubleshooting they may need to do to get to the Core." 

"I'd rather you did that from here," Mace said. 

"I'm about an hour away from the University," Obi-Wan said. 

"I could send Public Safety," Mace offered. 

"I'll keep that in mind," Obi-Wan said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'll keep an eye on the rest of the systems, see if anything else goes down. It should just be an isolated incident, but you never know." 

"We don't have the budget to replace the servers," Mace said. 

"We're going to need to replace them within the next fiscal year," Obi-Wan warned. "Four of them are going to go offline on us whether we like it or not." 

"Shit," Mace muttered. "Fine, you keep an eye on them and I'll figure out the budget." 

"Better you than me," Obi-Wan said, looking up as a key was tossed onto the table. "I'll talk to you later, Mace." The other man hung up and Obi-Wan let the phone fall into his lap as he frowned up at Cody. "What's this?" 

Cody looked awkward, and Rex was conspicuously absent, as he sat down at the table. "That's your key," he said. 

Obi-Wan hesitated before reaching out to pull it over to him. It was, actually, his key. When they had first moved in he had too many silver keys and so he'd painted the key blue with a bottle of nail polish he had forgotten he had owned in the move. It had chipped away over the years but the blue remained on the head of the key. He looked at Cody, confused. 

"We have a lot of shit to work out," Cody said. "Like how we don't apparently talk to each other? I've known you for eight years, Obi-Wan, and not once did I know you had a brother. I know so much about you but there's more I don't know." 

Obi-Wan glanced at the key, trying to figure out what Cody was saying. Was he…? No. Hope was cruel. He set the key down on the table and sat on his hands, making himself look at Cody instead. "So we need to talk?" Obi-Wan asked. 

"Yeah," Cody said. "Both of us. I should have asked you about the phone call instead of bottling it up and getting jealous, or talked to you about seeing you in bed with someone else instead of just kicking you out." 

"I didn't know what I had done wrong," Obi-Wan said softly, ignoring his phone as it went off. This was slightly more important. "You told me to get out and most of my things were already packed and, and I don't know. I just." He honestly had just reverted to locking it all down, like he had when he was a kid and getting returned to another group home because he was too angry, asked too many questions, was too much or not enough. 

"I'm sorry," Cody said. "I was jumping at shadows that weren't there." 

His phone started to ring and he sent it to voicemail. "Can you tell me why?" he asked. 

Cody's eyebrow arched, a pointed look at his phone, and he ignored it. "You remember how we were together? We went from zero to one hundred in a month and it never slowed down. We were intense around each other and looking back at that? It wasn't really healthy to be that wrapped up in someone else. One of us was bound to snap and, well. Guess it was me." 

Obi-Wan stared at him. He was too 'intense'? That was a new one for him. 

Cody cleared his throat, sipping his coffee again. "So. Think we can work things out?" 

"I'm missing something," Obi-Wan said faintly, feeling lost. "Work…what out?" 

Cody winced. "Will you come home? We can work things out and get our relationship back on track." 

Obi-Wan blinked, looking at the key on the kitchen table and then at Cody. "But, you just said? We're too intense. We're--" His phone went off again and he sent it to voicemail without looking. Work could live without him for the time it took for them to figure out what was going on between them. "Cody, please." 

"I'm not saying things don't have to change," Cody said. "The way we were definitely has to change because that was kind of scary. Thrilling, amazing, wonderful, but scary. I'd rather build something that will last with you." 

Obi-Wan chewed his bottom lip, for lack of anything else to do. "Rex hates me," he said finally. 

"He doesn't hate you," Cody said with a sigh. "He was angry because he thought you were an asshole who was cheating on me. Turns out I'm the asshole." 

"I'm just bad at emotions and talking to people," Obi-Wan said. He hesitated before plowing ahead. "The system kind of messes with your head, even if you try not to let it. You, I don't know. Hoard secrets and thoughts and feelings because they can't be taken away like everything else. I guess it got to me more than I thought it did." 

Cody shrugged, "Military. Neither of us are perfect." 

"You want to try again?" Obi-Wan asked, letting himself hope for the barest of moments. 

"Do you?" Cody asked. 

"You're the first person I called when I was absolutely shitfaced and desperate for a ride home, even knowing you probably wouldn't pick up," Obi-Wan said. "Pretty sure you're it for me, Cody." 

Cody let out a sigh and got up, coming around the table and tugging Obi-Wan to his feet. "We can move you back in this weekend," he said, wrapping his arms around him and holding Obi-Wan close. Obi-Wan just let his eyes close and breathed the other in, trying not to cling. "Since you said you haven't unpacked." 

"Haven't," Obi-Wan murmured, nuzzling against Cody's skin and closing his eyes. "Only the basics I'd need every day." 

Cody nodded and squeezed gently before letting him go as Obi-Wan's phone went off again. "You should probably get that." 

Obi-Wan sighed and picked up the phone. "Kenobi." 

= 

Cody ended up taking Obi-Wan back to his apartment not too long after breakfast, the two of them quietly talking on the way there, trying to catch up on six months of silence. Cody's job at the Police Academy was going well; he had a good group of cadets this year that he was enjoying tormenting. There was some family drama Obi-Wan had missed out on--Kix had started dating someone and it had blown up throughout the entire family because how dare he? And then Boba had shrugged and said so what, he was dating someone too, and the meltdown had been apparently spectacular--but otherwise it had been a quiet six months. 

"Rex is probably going to stick around," Cody said, pulling into a guest parking spot. 

"You can come in," Obi-Wan said, texting instructions to one of his minions. "I just want to shower and change, grab the work stuff to deal easier with this server meltdown, and we can head back." 

Cody nodded and left got out of the car, Obi-Wan shoving his phone in his back pocket and fishing out his keys. Rex staying on as a 'roommate' didn't really surprise Obi-Wan, not really, the two eldest boys of the Fett family had always been close and Rex probably wanted to keep an eye on the whole situation. Before everything had happened Obi-Wan had thought Rex had liked him too, but now he wasn't so sure. Some of that was probably old insecurities raising their ugly head but doubt was like that. 

"You weren't kidding," Cody said as Obi-Wan shooed him into the apartment. 

Obi-Wan glanced at him, curious. "Why would I?" he asked. 

What was supposed to be the living room was really just a holding pen for the boxes he had never unpacked. He had them stacked about, untouched, unlabelled, and wasn't really in the mood to go through them. The only thing he actually needed these days was clothes for work, his computers, the new bed he'd had to buy, and whatever food he remembered to buy in the kitchen. He went more for paper plates and disposable silverware these days; perfect, he supposed, for a disposable life. 

Cody stood in the middle of the room, scratching the back of his neck, as Obi-Wan ducked into the bedroom. He needed to get clean, try to clear away more of the cobwebs, so he could better deal with work and the personal hurricane of his life. He gathered clothes on autopilot, swerving around a Cody who was looking for somewhere to sit, and into the bathroom. 

There was a chair, Obi-Wan thought as he climbed into the shower, over by the window with a table that he used as a desk. Cody would find it and sit there. The most embarrassing thing he'd find was a picture of them from some event when they were together, both of them laughing and holding onto the other. He'd had it in his wallet and couldn't bring himself to throw it out. Instead, he had decided to torture himself with it, staring at it when he wasn't working and trying to figure out what had gone wrong. 

Turns out--nothing. Nothing had gone wrong except they didn't know how to talk to each other. 

He let out a sigh and scrubbed his hair clean, grabbing the spicy soap he favored and wiping himself down quickly. He had talked about Anakin, Padme...did he need to talk about the others as well? Those who had left him and hurt him so much? He didn't want to talk about Qui-Gon, the one hope he had had at a proper adoption, before it had been taken from him. He knew he had issues, he was okay with that. 

He turned the water off and grabbed his towel, drying off slowly as he thought. He wanted Cody back, wanted everything they used to have, and if he was honest? There really was nothing he wasn't willing to give in exchange for that. He just wasn't used to talking about himself, so much more used to deflecting, but he would do what he needed if it meant that Cody and him could fix things. 

He pulled on his clothes and went back into the apartment, tossing his towel over the door as he went. Cody was at his desk, texting someone with a scowl, and Obi-Wan hesitated before going over to brush a hand over his hair. Before, he would have kissed him. Now? Now, he didn't know what was welcome. 

"Hey," Cody said, looking up at him with a smile and leaning into the touch. "Dad's bringing dinner over, if you want to stick around." 

Obi-Wan nodded. "Sure." 

Cody looked awkward for a moment before a stubborn look crossed his face. "You said you can work remote?" he asked. 

"Unless I have a meeting, yeah," Obi-Wan said. "Nothing's scheduled right now and that's not likely to change, even with the servers trying to go up in flames." 

"So, uh, I started to pack you a bag and then backed off," Cody admitted, the back of his neck and the high points of his cheeks going red. "Since we hadn't talked about it and we need to talk about it." 

"About?" Obi-Wan asked, shifting to lean against his desk so he could see Cody better. 

"This place is sad," Cody said, blunt. "Yeah, we can't really move you in until the weekend when I can get my brothers to be menial labor and we can get a truck, but that doesn't mean you have to stay here. Pack a bag with what you need and come back to the apartment." 

Obi-Wan stared at him. 

"If you want," Cody said, faltering. 

"It's that easy?" Obi-Wan asked, feeling exhausted. "This is that easy?" 

"Hardly," Cody said, stretching his legs out in front of him. "We were never really easy, Obi." 

"No, we kind of were," Obi-Wan said. "We always felt right together, it never took work to make our pieces fit. But, the way it fell apart, and now this? I'm trying to figure out if it should require more effort or not." 

Cody snickered, "Oh, there's going to be effort. Talking, for one. We actually need to talk to each other. Talking requires a lot of effort." 

Obi-Wan looked around his apartment, the boxes and the half-life he had been living, and then at the man who was everything else to him. "I'm so confused," he admitted. "I'm thrilled this is happening, don't get me wrong, but I'm not quite sure how we ended up at this point." 

"Chance?" Cody said with a shrug. 

Obi-Wan chewed his bottom lip and shook his head. Chance. Sure. He went into his bedroom and saw the half-packed bag on the bed. He went through it, seeing what Cody had grabbed, before adding more to it, satisfied with the choices the other had made. He could feel Cody near him, in the doorway maybe, as he continued to gather what he would need for the next few days. 

"I have missed you," Cody said. "It was hell, those first few weeks, that's why Rex moved in. Said I needed looking after, the jerk, and then the whole family descended on me." 

Obi-Wan rubbed at his nose and closed the bag. "I, I just need to grab my laptop and work cell," he whispered. 

"Obi," Cody said with a sigh. 

Obi-Wan sat on the bed, feeling gutted. "What do you want from me? It was awful, it's been awful. I've hated these past few months and people are sick of being around me. They either tell me to start dating again, which no, or to, I don't know. Get Tinder and, and." He let himself flop back on the bed. "As if that would solve the problem." 

Cody sat next to him on the bed, taking his hand. "Feels wrong, the idea of kissing someone else, or sleeping with them. Rex got me to go on a date with someone but it was completely uninteresting, I kept comparing them to you." 

Obi-Wan rolled over to curl around Cody, head against his back. The idea of Cody on a date with someone else burned through him. Despair or jealousy, who knew. 

"I just want you," Cody said, squeezing his hand. "Even when it was possible that you had cheated on me, I still wanted you. I was just so, I don't know, hurt and angry. I told my family my suspicions and what I had seen and they agreed it didn't look good. Guess with that type of validation I just reacted instead of, of trying to work things out." He reached out and ran a hand through Obi-Wan's hair. "The guy I was dating before you, he was a serial cheater. I forgave him every time, tried to explain it away, ignore it, whatever. When we finally broke up, I told myself I was never going to go through that again. You, I don't know. We were so good, maybe too good? You know? Maybe it scared me and I was looking for an excuse. Maybe, well. Who knows." 

Obi-Wan closed his eyes. "There was this man, Qui-Gon Jinn, who wanted to adopt me when I was little. This was before Anakin came into the group home, before a lot of things. I was twelve, maybe thirteen, somewhere around there. Young enough that some of the foster families still wanted me but old enough that adoption was usually out of the question." 

"Obi?" Cody asked, twisted to lie down next to him. 

"It was going so well," Obi-Wan said, his voice breaking. "I had a home. He, he already had a son a little older than I was too. Xanatos. He was sixteen? He could drive, I remember that. They were out doing something, I don't remember, but there was an accident. Someone's brakes failed and plowed into them, killed on impact. Back into the system I went." 

Cody pulled him close, silent. 

"I'm not used to things going well," Obi-Wan said quietly. "Maybe I did do something before, to make you think I was going to cheat on you. Maybe I tried to test you to see if you'd stay. I don't know. I just know that I'm not good at this." 

"No one's good at relationships," Cody said, kissing his forehead. "We both fucked up. It can't be fixed with a simple 'I love you and I'm sorry' but it's a start. So's talking." 

"I can talk," Obi-Wan said. "I can try to, at least. You can remind me if I'm not." 

"And you can remind me," Cody said. 

Obi-Wan nodded, turning so he was pressed into Cody's chest, tucking his head under the other's chin. They could figure this out. They'd be stronger for it too. 


End file.
